


a broader point of view

by pocky_slash



Series: Iowa [3]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Established Relationship, Introspection, Iowa, M/M, Post-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 06:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: That Will is in love with him is something that he knows, obliquely, something that he certainly suspected after their first night together and understands now as an enduring truth. It's not something that he's ever thought about before, however, something that he's really examined. He hasn't considered the implications of love, of really loving someone, in over a decade. He certainly hasn't thought about the implications of someone focusing that feeling, that vulnerability in his direction.*Sam has spent his entire life abandoning everything he loves. The thought of hurting Will terrifies him. Even more terrifying is the slowly dawning revelation that he almost certainly already has.
Relationships: Will Bailey/Sam Seaborn
Series: Iowa [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/26474
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	a broader point of view

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, wow, it's 2021. I cannot think of a single thing I can put in this author's note to encompass how wildly bizarre it is to think that I'm working on this series again over ten years after I posted the last entry and a full fifteen years since I first started it.
> 
> The Iowa sequence remains one of my favorite things I've ever written and Iowa Will and Sam forever live in my heart. When I first started the Iowa stories, they took place over ten years in the future, in 2017/2018. As I work on them now, they're firmly in the past. There are so many things that I never could have predicted in 2007, 2008, 2010, even, and so many tiny details that are anachronistic now, but revisiting them has reminded me that the core of these stories are Will and Sam's thoughts, and in that way, they're kind of timeless?
> 
> I don't know if anyone is still reading Sam/Will now--even at the "height" of Sam/Will in like, 2008 on LiveJournal there were only around five of us (I did a poll) and now everyone has scattered the way folks did once LJ was no longer the fandom hub. It feels a little weird throwing this out there, this series that has always been in the back of my mind and used to be a common enough subject among folks in fandom that I could refer to it by name and everyone would know what I was talking about.
> 
> Time is weird. I don't even know what I'm doing with this author's note, honestly--it's the one year anniversary of quar and I've lost my mind.
> 
> Title is from "Arrival" by Dar Williams. This takes place after [to fall just a little bit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/518332) (Sam's PoV) and [The World of Safe People](https://archiveofourown.org/works/518336) (Will's PoV) and makes the most sense if you're familiar with those.
> 
> If you're into this, I'd really love if you left a comment. I'm...strongly considering finishing the third "big" story in the sequence.
> 
> Thanks for reading, after all these years!

It takes Sam time to come out of the fog of his breakdown, tentative steps, each testing to make sure that the world he's pulled around him since abandoning his life in Chicago is still solid, still whole now that he can actually feel it under his feet, see it in full color, the numbness of the last six months fading. It helps to have a touchstone at the center, to have Will, steady and reliable and there to keep him grounded.

There's always been something about Will, something that stuck with him, something that crawled under his skin deeply enough that after fifteen years of silence, Will was the third person he wanted to call as he slowly cracked in two. When he thinks of Will, he thinks of the driven, dedicated political mastermind who got a dead candidate elected. He thinks of the man who could make it rain.

(That image is so clear in his head, so crisp that he forgets sometimes he didn't see it first hand. His first trip out to California to meet Mrs. Wilde, Will and Elsie picked him up from the airport and they ate lunch at a tiny sandwich shop. Elsie gave Sam a play-by-play of election night, occasionally urging Will to explain something and then shushing him because he wasn't telling it right.

"And he's standing there in the middle of the street with his arms up in the air and the heavens just opened!" she had said. "Right on cue! A total downpour!"

Will had blushed then, and looked down at the table, and not for the first time Sam had wanted to kiss him so badly he forgot why he was in California entirely.)

Iowa isn't what Sam expected of Will. This quiet life seems antithetical to the person that Sam remembers. But if the past six months have taught him anything, it's that maybe he's prone to seeing what he wants to see rather than what's actually there. For all that this isn't what Sam would have imagined, it also just...fits. Will fits. This life fits. It fits so startlingly well that Sam isn't sure why he questioned it in the first place. Looking up and seeing Will doing paperwork and sipping coffee at the kitchen table seems so normal it makes his chest ache.

He wonders if this is maybe what Will is in his truest form, if a quiet, anonymous life in a sleepy rural town has boiled Will down to his most basic components, his patience and kindness and humor and desire to put goodness into the world. They were always there, woven into an idealistic political mind, obvious if you looked at him, thought about him for more than a few moments. Sam did a lot of thinking about Will, back then. They're all the things that have stuck with Sam for fifteen years, things that would sometimes nudge Will into Sam's mind and leave him wondering why he didn't kiss Will all those years ago, why Will didn't kiss him, when Sam could tell, in the quiet moments between them, how very badly he wanted to.

He finishes up at the dishwasher, just as Will wrinkles his nose at something on one of the forms he's filling out. It's one of a million little expressions Sam has noticed since unceremoniously moving into Will's spare room in April. Will has a fairly good poker face, but when he's unguarded, he's endlessly expressive. Sam likes each little quirk, likes discovering new ones. He likes the idea that Will is comfortable around him. 

"I'm gonna go find something to watch on television," Sam says quietly after he's dried his hands. He touches Will lightly on the back, right between his shoulder blades, and feels the tension in his shoulders melt away. Will tips his head back to look up at Sam with a half smile.

"If I manage to conquer this new course paperwork, I'll be in soon," he says.

"I have faith you'll emerge victorious," Sam says, and brushes his thumb against the nape of Will's neck before pulling himself away into the other room.

He settles into the couch and then pauses to allow Jackson to jump up and settle himself onto Sam's lap. Will swears Jackson wasn't a lap cat before Sam moved in, but Sam can't seem to go anywhere or do anything without Jackson wanting to tag along. He doesn't mind it. He never thought of himself as a pet person, but with the cat purring on his lap, he understands the appeal.

Sam flips idly through the channels, passing by the news stations without pause--by unspoken agreement, they don't watch the news together, though Sam imagines Will must have to keep up with it on his own for work--and through syndicated reruns before settling on a cake decorating show, which seems to be about as much as he can handle tonight. He pets Jackson and gets lost in the intricacies of layered cakes and buttercream frosting until the camera switches to the judges and the change in scene reveals a reflection of the room on the television screen. Sam and Jackson and the couch, of course, but also what's behind him, namely Will. Will, leaning his shoulder against the door jamb with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at Sam. Staring at Sam with a look on his face that utterly takes his breath away.

That Will is in love with him is something that he knows, obliquely, something that he certainly suspected after their first night together and understands now as an enduring truth. It's not something that he's ever thought about before, however, something that he's really examined. He hasn't considered the implications of love, of really loving someone, in over a decade. He certainly hasn't thought about the implications of someone focusing that feeling, that vulnerability in his direction.

His mouth goes dry and he tries to swallow, fumbles for the glass of water on the side table. He hasn't turned around, hasn't indicated his spying on a moment that was clearly private, clearly not meant for him, and fervently hopes that the television's reflection hasn't revealed him to Will as baldly as it just revealed Will to him.

He coughs a little on the first sip of water, chokes just a bit, but it's enough to summon Will to his side, leaning casually against the arm of the couch with his more usual affectionate expression.

"You okay there?" he asks.

"Fine," Sam insists with a sputter. He takes another sip of water and manages it this time, clearing his throat and saying more clearly, "I'm fine."

Will settles into the sofa next to him, close enough to feel the warmth of his body, but not so close that they're touching. Sam isn't sure if he's grateful or disappointed.

"What are we watching?" Will asks.

"It's a...cake...show," Sam says awkwardly. "Cake...decorating--food show."

It makes Will laugh, apparently delighted by his sudden inability to speak, and Sam thinks that six months ago he might have been offended by that, if he could have even managed to have that much of a conversation at all. Today, he swallows again and watches the way Will's eyes crinkle up when he laughs. Sam reaches out and tilts Will's face towards him so that he can kiss him.

Will is happy to provide a kiss. Sam runs his thumb against the side of Will's jaw and he shivers and slides closer until they're pressed together, side to side. 

They break apart and Will smiles again, murmurs, "You know what? I think this is a rerun, so why don't we--"

Sam kisses him again and he laughs, again, this time lower and softer. He pulls Sam closer, which involves nudging Jackson off of his lap, something that Jackson protests with an indignant yowl as he tries to jump back up.

"Hey, get out of here," Will says, shooing Jackson away. "I know you like him more than me, but he likes me more than you, so bug off for a second, would you?"

"Confident in that?" Sam asks with a smile of his own.

"Fairly," Will says, and Jackson finally gives up, allowing Will to pull Sam towards him until they're tangled on the couch, making out like teenagers, Sam's chest aching with something he can't name the entire time.

*

It's been weeks since the fair, almost two months. Sam isn't certain what was going through his head at the time. He liked Will--he'd known for years that something about Will lit him up inside. But coming to Iowa wasn't meant to be a seduction--he's still not sure _what_ coming to Iowa was--and the notion of romance hadn't even occurred to him until deep into the summer. His memory of most of the last few months is hazy, but he does clearly remember going to the fair with Will, feeling more relaxed than he had in a long time. He remembers Will introducing him to some undergrads who were local enough to come out for the fair and thinking at the time, _Oh, they think we're a couple_ , followed almost immediately by, _Wait, are we a couple?_

He kissed Will on the ferris wheel, a terrible cliche that he was aware enough to acknowledge even then, but it wasn't something they talked about. He kissed Will on the ferris wheel, eager and hungry, something awakening inside of him and firing up the nerve endings that had been in hibernation for months, maybe years, leaving him hot all over and desperate to touch. They went home and they had sex and they talked about life, obliquely, but not about the thing between them. Sam moved his things out of the guest room and that was that. That's how it's been.

He's been lost in his own head for a long time, laying out the pieces of his life and then fitting them back together for months. It's been his main focus, and Will has just been there, just out of focus in the background, a calming presence that he didn't need to think about until he had the rest sorted.

He's not sure if things are sorted now, but he's certainly thinking about Will.

Sam was in love with a girl in his eleventh grade biology class and then he was in love with his sophomore year college roommate and then he was in love with Josh and Josh and Josh, onwards and onwards for years, even as he fell in and out of love with Lisa right in the middle of it all. It taught him that there were different kinds of love, kinds that made him warm inside and kinds that consumed him. Josh consumed him. Even after he fell out of romantic love with Josh, even after he came to terms with the fact that nothing was ever going to happen again, nothing ever should have happened the first time, he was still consumed by his love for Josh. It's what made him say yes when Josh asked him to come work for Santos. It's what kept him there for two years before he couldn't hide anymore from the fact that his heart wasn't in the Santos presidency. 

A part of him still loves Josh--a love like that never stops--but it's been a long time since he was in love with Josh. There was Joanne, afterwards, a footnote between his White House jobs, a kind, normal woman who he really thought could bring him the normal sort of life he was supposed to have, but that was barely a warm inside love. Joanne never had a chance of consuming him.

And the thing about Will is that he's not a consuming kind of love, either. He's not a warm inside kind of love. Will is something else. Will is the feeling of holding your fingers to the radiator after coming in from a snowstorm. Will is a heavy quilt on a rainy Saturday morning. Will's love has thawed the feelings that were frozen in place for years, helped burn off the fog that's been following him around. He can feel Will's love all around him, supporting him, as deep and immense as the sky above him on a clear Iowa morning.

It's something new, something different. He didn't notice it because it wasn't something he had thought to look for, but here it is, right in front of him, keeping him warmer inside than he would have been on his own without the threat of destruction looming above him. 

He loves Will.

He _loves_ Will.

And if there's one thing he's been good at over the past twenty five years of his life, it's turning his back and leaving the things he loves behind.

*

He slips out of bed as the numbers on the clock flip into single digits, hours after Will fell asleep with Sam in his arms. He's careful--Will has to work in the morning and this early in the semester he needs as much sleep as he can get. Sam doesn't dress, though it's chilly outside of the blankets, and tip-toes out of the room in just his pajama pants and a Princeton t-shirt that's seen better days.

He's not sure where he's going, what he needs, what he's looking for. There's an urgency that's left his mind racing, a looming fear that bloomed the moment he realized how deeply, how truly he loved Will.

Sam doesn't get to hold onto the things he loves. Something in him always manages to destroy them.

He walks around the living room, first, unable to sit, too restless to stop moving. Jackson, somehow alerted to his presence, appears, meowing up at him and then following his circuit for a few cycles--living room, hallway, kitchen, hallway, living room. Eventually, Jackson abandons him and settles into the armchair to watch him pace.

He doesn't know what to do about the way his heart and mind are racing. He knows he's afraid of leaving Will, of hurting Will, but he doesn't know what to do to calm those feelings, doesn't know how to come up with a solution. He can barely sketch out the problem in concrete terms, the fear in his mind beating staccato along with his pulse. 

His movement slows eventually. Moving isn't burning off the adrenaline, and he putters to a stop in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He came here vacant and numb and lost and Will led him back to himself. He ran away from his old life and Will was here, patient and steady, while he tried to figure out how to build a new one. His heart is full of love and admiration and respect and gratitude for Will, feelings so immense he's still not ready to articulate them. He owes Will everything, but Sam has a habit of turning his back on every debt, on running in the opposite direction when it all becomes too much.

He never wants Will to become too much, but it seems all but inevitable.

He climbs the stairs slowly, careful not to tread too hard or fast, to avoid the creaking and groaning of the boards as much as possible. He's not sure where he's going--it's not back to bed. He's not ready to face Will, peaceful and vulnerable wrapped up in their bed, just yet. Instead, he finds himself looking at the narrow door that leads up to the attic. It's cramped and small, he knows from experience, full of furniture left behind by the previous tenants and boxes covered in Will's messy handwriting.

Boxes covered in his own handwriting, too. Boxes he really hasn't considered since he first packed them, slapdash in the middle of the night before loading them into his car and leaving his entire life behind.

No amount of careful steps can stop the attic stairs from groaning under his weight, squeaking with disuse, but he closes the door behind him and hopes it's far enough away that it won't bother Will. It's hardly the first time Sam has been up in the middle of the night, wandering the house, so even if Will does wake, Sam is confident he'll roll over and go back to sleep.

Still, he'd rather Will not wake at all. Sam's taken so much from him already--he should be allowed to sleep.

He doesn't know what he's looking for in the attic. No, that's not right--he's looking for an answer to a question he can't quite grasp. He's looking for something in the detritus of his old life that might explain why he's been like this, that might give him some clue as to how to fix it.

He took odd things with him--yearbooks and photos and legal briefs and memos, random kitchen implements, one set of good sheets. Mementos from people and events he can't quite place any longer. He knows this vase is significant, this book used to mean something. He knows there's a reason this box of ticket stubs has moved with him from home to Princeton to Duke to New York to DC to LA to Chicago. They're all things that happened to someone else, though, someone still stuck in the fog that curls around Sam's memory from time to time.

He wonders what parts of Iowa will stay with him when he leaves. He wonders if he'll remember, in fifteen years, what they meant.

Because he doesn't want to hurt Will, he well and truly doesn't, but he's been here for six months, relying on Will's kindness and patience while he slept and floated through his days without paying rent or even offering conversation. He doesn't want to hurt Will, but he's realized he's almost certainly hurt him already.

*

Even Jackson is asleep when Sam returns to the first floor, dazed and anxious and cursing his own mind for being unable to hold onto the memories of the past six months, for letting them slip through his grasp whenever he tries to focus on them. It blurs into one long stretch of contemplation, one endless expanse of trying to stop the buzzing in his head. There are certain things that stand out--a particularly funny joke from Will over breakfast, standing out in a rainstorm, watching the ferris wheel go up as they set up the fair, driving into the sunset while listening to the patchy reception from the college radio station, making dinner for Will one night because he had a good day and he knew it was the least he could do--but most specific events are lost to him.

A part of him mourns the fact that he can't remember those first days with Will--it seems important, the start of their life together. It seems like something he should treasure. But more importantly to him at this moment, he can't remember any moments where he may have said something he shouldn't, done something he shouldn't, left Will aching or wounded. It seems inevitable. The very fact that he didn't care enough to notice is probably proof enough in itself.

Outside, the sky has slowly been fading from black to indigo. The stars have faded from the sky, and it's still an hour or two until sunrise, but the night is unmistakably over. It's a new day, and soon Will will be waking and Sam will....

Sam will what?

Will will be waking, will be joining Sam downstairs with maybe an absent scolding for not getting any sleep. Will, who stared at him last night like he hung the moon and stars in the sky, will likely kiss him good morning and ask if he needs anything and go over his schedule for the day while they make breakfast.

Sam has almost inevitably hurt Will, but he still looks at Sam like he's precious. Whatever has happened between them isn't enough to keep Will from being so in love with him that it makes his heart race to think about it. That has to count for something.

Summoned, perhaps, by Sam's thoughts, Will appears at the top of the staircase. He's wrapped in the quilt from the bed, the tail end of it dragging behind him as he descends the stairs slowly. He's not wearing his glasses and his eyes are barely open. Part of Sam is afraid he'll stumble, but he makes it to the first floor and across the hall to where Sam is standing. He wraps his arms around Sam from behind and rests his head on Sam's shoulder.

Sam waits for him to speak, but he doesn't say anything. He breathes deeply, in and out, still maybe half asleep, rising and falling against Sam's back as his lungs expand and contract.

Sam opens his mouth, and then closes it. He wants to ask, needs to know with a morbid curiosity that's still rattling around his brain. Has he hurt Will? Is Will just waiting for him to leave, the way he's left everything else he's pursued since he was young?

Slowly, like the arrival of the first grey rays of morning light, the answer to the question Sam hasn't been able to parse settles into place, between one of Will's deep, sleepy breaths and the next.

It's almost silly, how obvious it is. He's thought it every day, hasn't he? That this isn't how he expected Will to end up. This isn't how he expected himself to end up. This is new, this is different, this was never in the cards.

If his life is this different, maybe he's done making the same mistakes over and over again.

Everything in his life has been a goal, has been an aspiration. He wanted college and law school and politics. He had an idea of what his life would be, and that's the picture he's spent the last forty-seven years trying to replicate. He knew what he should be, what was expected of him.

This--Will, Iowa--isn't something he ever planned for. This is something wholly different, wholly new. As Will said not so long ago, this is something that's happened to him, rather than something he made happen. He's done searching for something specific--maybe it's time to sit back and discover what's coming to him instead.

It should be a terrifying thought, giving up his control. But his attempts to control his life so far have left him burnt out and hopeless, and Will's weight on his back, the warmth he's emanating, remind Sam that he's not doing this alone. Not this time. Somehow, that makes it less frightening. Somehow, the knowledge that he's not alone settles the churning in his head and the pounding of his heart.

He breathes with Will. Closes his eyes and times their breaths to match. He listens to the insects and the very distant rumble of an engine from the direction of Archie Taylor's farm. He listens to the clock in the kitchen ticking and the creaking of the house in the wind and something within him clicks into place. Or maybe it's not something clicking into place. Maybe it's something snapping clear in two, relieving a tension that's been building for longer than Sam can remember.

He opens his eyes again. Jackson is purring at his feet. Will is still warm against his back.

"Let's go back to bed," Sam whispers, and Will kisses the back of his neck and then slowly extricates himself from the embrace, taking Sam's hand and leading him back upstairs. It's a familiar trek--he could walk this path with his eyes shut--and soon enough they're settled in bed again, with Jackson jumping up to sleep at their feet. By the clock on the bedside table, there's still about two hours until Will needs to get up for work, and Sam is suddenly bone tired.

"Sleep," Will murmurs, more a yawn than a word. And Sam will, he knows he will, he's exhausted now that the adrenaline and anxiety have drained from his body.

But first....

"Will, I...." He trails off and tries to find the right words, less of a struggle than it was six months ago but still more of a struggle than it used to be. "I don't know if I've--I don't think I've said--Will." Will opens his eyes, sleepy and trusting, and the words are suddenly there on the tip of Sam's tongue. "I'm so happy to be here with you," he says.

Will's resulting smile warms him inside and out.

"Me too," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over at @fourteenacross on tumblr, where I'm liveblogging my slow descent into one-year-quariversary madness.


End file.
